


And All These Lives Might Just Be Maybe

by 13letters



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Love Story, Modern Setting, Multiverse, Post-Canon, Romance, canon-divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4767416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She just stares at him, blue eyes on blue eyes, and his are darker when he looks at her like that, like a puppy. She can't. Where's her inherited-from-father's resolve?</p><p>All these lives, and two things remain forever true:  the ploy of his eyes and the love that could be centuries of Regency Era and Roaring Twenties and McDonald's and Storm's End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. like a storm like a sea like her eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrozenSnares](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenSnares/gifts).



> For you. <3 I hope you enjoy these, but be nice! All were written between exam studying so if it seems like my brain was fried, think I was just in Rickon's mindset.

Aemon Targaryen is King. The realm prospers.

It's a perfect world, but it isn't, because her face is still scarred but her father tells her that she's so beautiful, that she's _his_ daughter, and oh, goodness, he'll say since he doesn't swear, how happy he is that she is. She could have been Uncle Robert's or Uncle Renly's when he gets around to having children, but neither of his brothers have any sense, he says, and that's why he sits on the King's Council and not his brothers.

It's a perfect world, but it isn't, but Shireen thinks there are good things even in the few tragedies that make the world seem very sad when her little girl heart starts to think on it. Davos helps with that, the second father he seems to be to her, and it's him that makes so many things better. Yes, Lord Willas Tyrell had an accident with his steed in a tourney, but the gods could have taken his life instead of just one leg. And the eldest Stark son, too, the one Shireen knew everyone said was handsome, but Davos told her about how the Northerners spoke about a lone wolf dying so the pack survived, and that seemed much better than the two sons and a sister and a father dying, didn't it?

Lyanna Stark was very happy with Uncle Robert, and their first son was to be named after Rickard, though. He'd live on, or so everyone said.

Shireen just didn't really know all about those vital topics of meditation.

She sits on a rock overlooking the cliffs of Storm's End, but she doesn't get _too_ close, no, no, her parents taught her better than that. But here is her peaceful place. All hers, where she can read like she always wants to, where she can sing to the birds sometimes to the birds she sees sweeping so close to the sea they must be touching it, where she can worry about all the things other nine year old girls fret themselves with.

Like the economical state of Westeros or all those conversations the silly girls in the kitchens have about handsome knights and lords and their sweet words with sweet sighs and their love stories. 

Those are her most favorite stories, but it's not like they know Shireen is listening. She didn't understand the parts they giggled loudly about, anyways.

She thinks today is not a day for singing or reading, she thinks today is a day to maybe catch a little sun and ponder these most serious things in life. 

She hasn't yet removed her other sock when she hears it, some loud commotion followed by shouting. And because she's too fret to put her right sock back on just in case propriety's needed, she doesn't know he's behind her until he shouts. 

"Your face!"

Her shoulders are tense, and for just a fraction of an instant, she feels like she should be the one apologizing even though she's the one that was just _attacked_ in this sanctuary by her cliffs. Her favorite place in the world, and this ruddy-faced little boy visiting from Winterfell is invading it. So "Thank you," she murmurs, polite venom, killing with kindness if she could. Not really, she just didn't like the stairs that made her feel so small when she just wanted to be a person.

"It looks like a dragon got you!" he shouts loud and rambunctious, and she almost considers scolding him before she thinks that's too much what mother would do. He's telling her how brave she must be now, anyways, how fierce she must have been to survive such a " _ghostly_ " attack, but she isn't too sure if he really believes all the childish madness he's gesticulating animatedly, but he's asking her to play pretend with him since there isn't anything fun to do around here. 

She just stares at him, blue eyes on blue eyes, and his are darker when he looks at her like that, like a puppy. She can't. Where's her inherited-from-father's resolve? "Alright," she relents quietly.

But then she's an even more beautiful princess spared a pyre thanks to the dashing rescue of a handsome knight narrowly escaping impending doom at the hands of a wicked sorceroar (" _sorcerer, I think_ ," and he grinned). But then she's an unseemly maid discovering the truth of a murder ploy in a rich man's roomy inn, and neither of them can quiet their laughter.

They're as free as the seagulls, and they might as well be birds since she's lost to all of this _fun_ and running about like she's a dragon until she's been slayed by him, a Dornish sellsword.

"I'd very much like to be a knight, I think," she says like she's admitting it, clutching her sides because she's breathless. When he doesn't tell her that girls can't be them, she feels her face grinning bright and probably stupid. At least until he collapses on the ground and declares himself the maiden in need of rescuing.

"Don't take forever," he warns. He was lying so still she almost worried the gods had taken him. But then he was shaking in laughter, his curly hair falling into his eyes, and he whispers it. "You'll have to kiss me awake."

She sputters, all affronted as he _laughs_ as she sputters, making sure he's well aware that no, no, she won't be kissing him for anything, the silly little boy he was. "I never!" she squealed, rubbing at a mudstain on her dress.  
He just laughs again. "It happens in the stories!" Sansa would be proud of him.

"No," she repeats, her mouth threatening another smile.

"Fine," he says unphased. He's then on his feet and whirtling about around her, her own feet spinning with her giggles as she tries to match his pace. "You'll have to be my saltwife, then," he tells her, because Theon mentioned how great they were, and this lady of Storm's End was great. He knew a red-faced Jon asked Theon if there really were such things, but like he knew what they really were. Salt kept meats fresh in the winter, didn't they?

"Um," and ladies don't _um_ , but she didn't know what it was either so she agreed. And so they were playing pretend again, loud and obnoxious next to the cliffs where wind was loud and booming, making their animated movements all the more majestic.

Hours must have passed of their laughter, but it wasn't until she heard the bells that meant a ship returned, that Davos returned, that she needed to get back to the keep.

"I'll see you!" he calls to her as she waves, but then he's chasing after her, hollering she wait. 

"Yes?"

"My mother," he gasped from all the running. "She told us all that disease caught your face," and he's talking so quick that she can't interrupt in snark, so she can smile again instead of think he's insulting her, "and she warned us not to stare and be rude so I said what I said about dragons but you're still very pretty and you needed to know that."

She barely caught the end of what he said, but he nodded like it was important and final, so she nodded, too, feeling her face get warm, her stormy eyes burn against the salt of the wind.

He waved again before he was off, and that was that.

 _What a silly little boy._ She'd have to tell Davos all about him.


	2. a misunderstanding like two strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is. He's gawking at her again. "What are the chances?" he asks, and he's suddenly whispering, standing and sitting himself a chair away from her. He's a loud whisperer, and everyone can probably hear them.

It's Boston, New York. A popular, loud city with a very uncomfortable gyno waiting room.

It's just time for her check-up; she hadn't wanted to come, and she wanted to be here even less when she saw the people waiting for the doctor to see them. Some old woman, some kinda cute young man with auburn hair if she could tell by the side of his face. A happy young couple, a middle-aged woman and her child.

She checks in to wait quietly, hears Ross from _Friends_ in the background from the TV. She takes her seat, hopes the wait won't be too long. Standard procedure.

"Shit," the redhead guy says all of a sudden, making her jump in her sheet. "What the hell? I'm just," he says, obnoxiously rolling his eyes and shaking his head and curling his long fingers through his hair. He lets the magazine he was reading fall to the floor, and he swears again. "I'm done," he promises to nothing, frowning at the old woman scowling at him. "It's Kanye. He says he's running for president."

The other man in the room snorts, but no one else seems to mind besides the woman that made sure her kid wasn't listening to profanity. The silences stretches again, but then the television is set to TBS and it's a marathon of _Friends_.

And she just can't live her life without clapping in time with the theme song, as quietly and discreetly as she can (which isn't much), but she isn't the only one.

The redheaded guy clapped, too, and when he heard her, he just gawked.

Like he was a creep or she was a goddess or she kidnapped his dog or he was trying to discertain if he knew her or liked whatever he was eating.

"I feel it," he said just as suddenly, startling her yet again with his conviction since she stared back down to her phone when Phoebe was telling Chandler something and the quiet was awkward. "Us."

"..I beg your pardon?" She chances a look around, because maybe he isn't really speaking to her.

He is. He's gawking at her again. "What are the chances?" he asks, and he's suddenly whispering, standing and sitting himself a chair away from her. He's a loud whisperer, and everyone can probably hear them.

"Of what?"

"Of --"

"Rickon!" A dark-haired man shouts, the bell above the door jingling from the hall as he rushes in. "I made it! Where is she? Are we having a baby?!" he shouts, looking for the life of him like he could die from happiness. 

"Well, you and me aren't," redhead guy, Rickon says, but then there's a faint voice shouting for Gendry from behind the door, and Gendry, the giant black-haired guy she assumes, is rushing to get to the nurse holding what could be the rest of his life in results in her hands with --

"My sister," Rickon interrupts. "He's dating my sister, has been for, like.. six years? But she thinks they've been dating for two."

"Oh," she says, awkwardly, because who makes smalltalk in a gynecologist's office? He's looking at her expectantly, his bright blue eyes soft as he grins at her, and "This is weird," she whispers, shifting just a smidgen on the pink chair to face him. "I don't --"

"Dinner?" he intterupts her. "I want to take you to dinner. If you.. want to, I mean. Could we? Or might we, uh. Do you like Italian? Oh, no, that's awful, but there is this nice little place a few streets down from here, and sure it's weird to date someone you met at a doctor's office, but it's not like I'm your gynecologist. At least, not y--" HIs cheeks were getting red as he rambled nervously, but he stopped when he said that. Or almost said that, _not yet_ , and he stood and moved a chair away when she just stared at him.

"I didn't mean it like that," he insisted, his face so red. "You're just making me nervous. Stop," he said off-handedly.

"Okay," she whispered, not really sure why. Not to stop, but to --

"Okay?" he whispered back, perking up a bit. "I swear I'm not.. y'know, like that, or weird or nothing. But you seem nice and pretty and you clapped to _Friends_ and.." he still stammered when he was nervous, rambled, and she fought not to bite her lower lip. It was almost endearing. He was kinda cute. "My life needs that," he said seriously, and he just stared at her.

Like she was beautiful or the rest of his life, she didn't know, but they were having dinner at seven.


	3. happy endings rest here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He kicks her lightly under the table. "You know you're more than that."

It's Minnesota. Somewhere just outside of his posh family's ancestral home, some black tie restaurant with the best breadsticks she loves.

"Oh, goodness," she gasps. "It's so sparkley."

"I know," he says, a quick, slightly awkward, compulsive liar smile as he closes his fingers around the tiny velvet box. "Think she'll like it?"

"I think your mother loves it, doesn't she? Everything she'd ever hoped for you." She laughs, because the problem child of the eligible, honorable Starks, finally tying the knot in mostly business, mostly because he doesn't know what else he'll do. Or so he's told her.

"Your mother, too, maybe." Though they both knew her mom's always hated him and his uncombed hair, wrinkled clothes, bruised knees since he was a boy of four or four plus fourteen when they met more properly when he came home with Shireen for Christmas break that first year.

But she just laughs again, harsh and bright, chortling into her salad. Her mother would just love it if she'd go to a convent, not broker into a marriage. "No," she chortles. And with the candlelight over the white tablecloth casting an ethereal glow over their wine glasses, their skin, her hair, her eyes, her mouth, he thinks she's beautiful. "You have at least met this girl, haven't you?"

"Don't you remember me telling you? The golf club?"

"Oh, God, no."

"That's right."

"That was her?" She waits for his confirmation before she giggles again hysterically.

"Shireen," he whispers, but he's trying not to laugh with her. "People are staring."

"I didn't know that was her!"

"I didn't either! It was just an introduction, and --"

"And now," she interrupts him, smiling meekly at his annoyed frown. "Marriage." 

She shuffles her hair, dark curls curtaining her eyes instead of her scars, and he reaches for their wine bottle. He's pouring a meager two inches into his glass before he curses, and she sees him drinking out of the $112 bottle while their MIA waiter across the dining room stares.

"Rickon," she wants to laugh, but it's dreadfully serious again. "Does she make you happy?" She has to know, because she is so happy for him. She really, really is, so much so that her face (heart) hurts from all this smiling.

"Does she make me.." he starts like that's incredulous, but he slumps back into his chair, drums his fingers on the table. "We get on well enough, I guess. She seems like a good woman? My family loves her."

"And?" she prompts lightly. 

His bright blue eyes flash to hers. "She doesn't insult me like you do."

"I bet you're thrilled."

"Nah," he says, messing through his hair. "You're my best friend, Shireen."

"Really?"

He kicks her lightly under the table. "You know you're more than that."

"Rickon," she sighs, suddenly not hungry when godsdammit, she doesn't know what she was expecting. "You know that I do --"

"Love me," he finishes for her, like it's as obvious as it was the day they first met when he followed her around the library at the local college, when he pretended to be amnesiac so he could introduce himself to her properly charmingly, when she nearly accidentally hit him with her car, when they went to a McDonald's on their first interrupted hang-out because they had to pick up food for his family gathered in the hospital waiting room while Robb and Jeyne became parents.

"Rickon."

"No, I do, too! Just you, not me. I mean -- uh, shit, Shireen. You're my best friend," he repeats, moving a hand to muss his curls. "You're more than that."

"That's --" Oh, God. "That's the ring I picked out two years ago, isn't it?" It isn't a question. She makes it sound like an accusation, and he just rolls his eyes, scoffs at her, because _of course_ she doesn't forget anything.

"It is, yeah."

"But it was a joke," she says slowly.

"Yeah, but I remember you said it was pretty. And you claimed it so Robb couldn't since he was looking for a ring for Jeyne, and I mean, it's not a new style so they still had it, plus that old lady that wears the white gold with gold-gold that you think is tacky? She thinks we're married anyways. 'Cause I told her."

He's grinning like he's so pleased with himself, and she can see the stretch of his socks as he shifts a bit, crosses his ankle over his knee. His socks have Christmas trees on them and it's September. She doesn't know how that makes him perfect, but it does, and she thinks she's loved him for years. Maybe she's always known it, just hidden it under the guise of friendship and a stalwart moral compass and killer eyeliner technique thanks to Arya, and "Wait," she says quickly, holding up her hand. "I was told you were too scared to ask me out on a proper date."

"Who said that?" He's rising out of his seat like he'll tackle the perpetrators here and now, but her eyes rope him in, blue like the skies or oceans, like the curtain behind her head he's staring fixated at. "Shireen?" 

"Rickon?" It's a sigh. She folds her cloth napkin on her lap.

"You know I can't live my life without you in it."

"But I already see you most everyday --"

"More than that," he interjects, his cheeks a shade redder. "I was always too intimidated to ask you out, yeah, so that's why I'm proposing now," like it's so casual, "'cause I can't imagine my life with anyone else. I need to hear your condescending laughter when I nearly kill my Windows 4 computer. I need your breakfast of peanut buttered toast and cinnamoned oatmeal and strange fruit smoothie next to my breakfast pizza."

"Rickon," she laughs, but he just tugs at his tie, talks like he's honest to God imploring her. 

"I know you can't pee when it's quiet. And I know my mom told you to call her mom, and I know I don't remember the one time we accidentally had sex --"

"Rickon!" Her cheeks are red now, tables all around can hear him, and she doesn't know if this is a proposal, if it's just Rickon talking to hear himself outloud, if this is the start of something so dreadfully important like those flickers of domestic moments between them that could make their entire lives earnestly _them_ , but her eyes are starting to sting.

"You know I love you, Shireen. You really oughta know by now." 

She does. A large part of her's always loved him, too. His cheeky grin tells her he knows it. "What about that Mormont girl? I thought you were marrying her?"

"We aren't even dating," he snorts, reaching for her left hand with the ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My love! I hope you liked these. xoxo
> 
> They're a bit late, and more are coming, I promise! Just after tomorrow. Major exam then, then Gendrya sex to write, then REGENCY RICKEEN. CAN I GET A PRAISE THEON.
> 
> But in all serious, I hope you do like these. <3 All of these! Good night, loves.


	4. capitalism, or the Jurassic World AU no one asked for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, it's just his luck that the first time she sees him, she's enjoying her lunch on an umbrellaed table on the hotel patio, and she's staring right at him and his muddied boots and barbecue-stained shirt because he's staring at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to.
> 
> I _had_ to.
> 
> Picset: http://catching-sunbeams.tumblr.com/post/130661779072

The first time he saw her, she was standing in the petting zoo. The one for aged three to nine year olds. And she was what? Twenty? Thirty-four? Seventeen?

She's twenty-three, he knows that _now_ , but there she was surrounded by shrieking little kids as they tried to pet little dinosaurs like they were as common as house cats, but her. _Her_.

She was sitting cross-legged in front of a triceratops, one of the few of which they'd filed down the tips of her horns so they couldn't get sued in case a parent wasn't watching their snot-nosed brat, and she looked like she was crying.

Happily.

Morosely?

But she was crying and hugging the triceratops like she was part of his own generation, the one that dreamed of seeing a living dinosaur and wandering _what if?_ they were more than just the experiments and entertainment society perceived them as for enterprise, like she was experiencing something with that dinosaur that was too grand for words, and she just looked so alive. Beautiful. Just crying in front of the triceratops that had her cackling the most adorable laughter when she was head-butted by the tyke.

Now, it's just his luck that the first time she sees him, she's enjoying her lunch on an umbrellaed table on the hotel patio, and she's staring right at him and his muddied boots and barbecue-stained shirt because he's staring at her.

She's eating chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, though, politely glancing away when she happened to catch his eye from the veranda. Her only date's the brochure across the table, but he can't believe she's flipping through it vaguely instead of living its attractions herself.

He's still staring when she glances back (because of course she had to do a double-take) at him (and of course he's still staring at her), and maybe it's self-consciousness that has her lowering her gaze, or maybe it's just her want to see how creepy this worker is.

Cute, but creepy, and damn, if you asked him, he'd admit it.

He's been staring at this woman while she ate, dabbed daintily at her mouth with a cloth napkin in between bites, had to pull her dark hair up in a messy bun that swore to fight humidity 'till always with how she frowned up at the frizz and the sweat silhouetting her, but she's beautiful. And he's staring at her like an idiot.

"Go talk to her," Reg says as he brushes past him with a crate of something. When he shoves him towards the table, it's all the initiation he needs.

"Why are you here?" he blurts instead of taking the time to orchestrate their interaction wonderfully in his head. He winces seconds later, though, because that was ruder than he'd intended.

She stares at him like he's the tyrannosaurus on days they gotta hose the bastard down.

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry," he says quickly, sighing shortly as he tousles his hand through his hair. Sweat's starting to stick everywhere, but he's glad he's not wearing a water suit. He doesn't make all of his mistakes twice. "Sorry," he apologizes again, but he already has, and his nerves are catching up to his belly and jumbling up his words like he'd used to tease Jon about. "I'm sorry, that was rude, sorry, you -- I'm gonna sit."

She's smiling before she can help it, awkward and wary. His face is as red as her nose is sunburned, and he pulls out the chair opposite her before she can say a word. "..Why are you here?" she asks him instead. This stranger. At her table.

He offers his hand out to the awkwardness, gives her a sheepish smile to show he's harmless and means well. She waits a second before offering her own hand to shake, but he's nonplussed and shrugs easily, tells her he wants to sit 'cause he saw her.

And he spares half a second to look at the scars on her cheek, her pretty blue eyes, her brochure (it's a room service menu, pfft) all, and the way she laughs with a nervous giggle is captivating, and yep.

He likes this strange tourist.

The woman who cried at the petting zoo and ears dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

"I actually saw you yesterday," he remedies, calmer now since she's sipping at her tea. This is almost natural. "In the petting zoo?"

"I -- oh," she laughs. She covers her face embarrassed and flushed, spurting ridiculous giggles that _can't believe it_ , she mumbles, before sitting up and smiling in a nonchalant way he feels has been practiced. "First time touching a dinosaur, y'know," she tries, and she says it like it's an everyday thing.

"It's a lot, I know," he smiles. Gentle, he rubs his hand over his beard, thinks he needs a shave. "I'm Rickon, by the way."

"What do you do here, Rickon?" she inquires, a switch from familiar to professional in getting to know strangers, her elbows perched pretty up on the table.

"Some of everything," he admits. It's vague, but feeding and bonding with the herbivores is as pretentious as _I'm a medical student_.

"Oh." Maybe he really isn't a worker here after all, except he's dressed like a safari hiker and has a fanny pack. "I'm Shireen," she finally tells him, when a silence that isn't awkward settles over them. It's self-conscious in part to finish a meal in front of a stranger, but this one seems nice.

By the end of it, before he says he has to get back to work, he's offered to show her an exhibit she didn't know existed.

Tomorrow after lunch. He shakes her hand again when he stands, and he does seem nice. Strange, but nice.

 

*

 

Strange is better than nothing, though, and he isn't a stranger when he's introduced himself, so when it's morning and she's missed breakfast and has no options but a lemon-flavored brownie from Starbucks, she shouts for him across the street.

She really hopes that is him.

"Got yourself a girl?" his supervisor laughs, and it's only funny since she's out of earshot, since she's _seriously_ wearing flip flops here.

He cooks count all one hundred and thirteen safety hazards on one hand.

"I had a question!" she calls loudly, striding over to him. When she's about four feet away, the men with him clear away like clockwork like this is a highschool locker room.

"Shireen?"

If she's pleased he's remembered her name, she doesn't show it. She's just slightly happy he hasn't stared at the left side of her face. "Rickon?" she ensures before she's out with it, a long story about her alarm and a schedule she's missed half of this morning and her need for food.

"There's a Starbucks," he says. He regrets it when she glowers at him.

"Is there another place I'm missing?" she huffs, tugging at the hem of her _Jurassic World_ shirt.

"Ben and Jerry's ," he laughs, but she doesn't find it funny. "You like your schedules, do you?"

"I do, they're -- where are you going?"

"Jeep!" he calls, hearing her shuffle after him. It's a few yards away, but what the vehicle holds is Jurassic World's most valuable artifact.

He rummages in the back, and in between her shift from foot to foot, her glance around, he's pulled out a box of Girl Scout cookies. Savannah Smiles. "My sister loves these lemon ones," he explains, offering her the box. "She sends them in her care packages."

Shireen stares at the box, slides her gaze up to his blue eyes. "All I wanted was directions," she begins slowly, hesitantly.

It's the tone people use to make piss-poor excuses before they accept something, so he just rolls his eyes and shoves it in her hands. "You're hungry. You have a schedule."

"Rickon," and it's strange, using someone's name the first few times, but she smiles small to herself. "I appreciate it, really."

"Oh, I do, too," he smiles, unassuming.

"Do what?"

"The cookies come with a tour around the Island, y'know," he says, like he's trying to be cool and casual and confident. All he sounds is hopeful, though, and her face is reddening. Nice and sorta sweet.

"Okay," she agrees after a pause. She isn't much used to guys looking at her like that, and she hopes this is a good one, not just one that likes the girls from half a world away.

 

*

It's the third day. Her instincts that he's a good guy are pretty spot on.

He's a terrible driver, though, and he blames the road that's a dried, muddied path with each slam of the brakes, each crackle of her laughter over the engine.

"I don't think this is safe!" she shouts over the sixties music on the radio, Buddy Holly soundtracking this drive that feels a bit like something quick and whirlwind and a bit romantic.

"You rode in the glass balls! You're safe here!"

"They aren't glass!" But he's hit the brakes again, and they've stopped just shy of what looks like a grainy beach. "Is that sand?"

"That's what you're looking at?" When he laughs this time, it's disbelieving and amused, and he unbuckles his seatbelt, opens his door and walks to where he'll wait for her.

She's only a second behind him, but when he points, she doesn't see it. "What is it? This island didn't used to have a volcano, did it?"

"Shireen," he says. He reaches for her hand, threads his fingers through hers, and it's like static or electricity, her gasp as he gestures with their hands together. "Look at them."

He waits, but just when she's thought they're seagulls, she realizes they're not. "Oh," she whispers, and this.. _this_ is why she came here, for this magical, renewing trip that wouldn't have her the only thing in her universe. "Oh, Rickon," she chokes, because they're all soaring up overhead.

The sky's full of them, the majestic creatures with their wings spanning gallantly, and seeing this for real, standing next to an ocean that already has them small and insignificant just to matter even less because _dinosaurs_ are roaming the earth now -- her eyes start to sting.

"I love them," she whispers, sinking to the grainy sand to sit, a crick surely going to ruin her neck with how she gapes up to the heavens. This was better than any religion. "I might cry, Rickon."

When she sniffles, he sits down next to her, and it's a warm instinct that has him wrapping an arm around her. "It's okay if you do," he whispers, because he did, and Claire still does, and anyone that watches their dinosaurs hatch do, too. They haven't all lost their humanity yet. "Maybe they'll land and you can pet 'em," he adds, and she laughs.

 

*

 

The fourth day, she's sitting on a fence with a book outside the boundaries of where all the triceratopses are.

She falls off it when he speaks and startles her.

"What do you have that thing for?"

She's a jump and a flail, an instant dirt stain on her rolled-up-sleeved white shirt, but an instantly quick thanks because she toppled off the civilian side of the fence, not where he's standing. Dusting off her shorts, she grins at him. "How do you even have a job here?"

"What?" He laughs like he's confused, a fret to his ginger brows.

"Nothing. Well, yes, I mean, it's like you're Peter Pan at Disney World. Something everyone wanted to do, and you're here, and you're.. standing on that side."

"..Yeah?"

"It isn't like the petting zoo."

"Nope."

"Isn't safe," she adds.

"Who told you that?" He laughs more certainly this time, a flex of his arms around his tank top as he leans onto the rail.

"This sign?"

"Shireen," he starts, looking fifteen variants of amused. "With all respect," though he's just being a jackass now 'cause he likes this one, "what makes you think a dinosaur couldn't step over the four-foot wall?" She doesn't have anything to say to that, so he asks her again with a cheeky grin, _what's that thing for?_

"It's telling me about the dinosaurs," she says, obviously.

"Oh," he hums, thoughtful. With a stretch, he leans forward to prop his elbows on her side of the fence, his piercing blue eyes mirthful up at her, his fingers so close to her knee. "Well, I can tell you everything you need to know. That one," he points, and she lifts her hand to shield her eyes to see the baby triceratops he's gesturing to. "She loves to be cuddled."

"..What?" she laughs again, a bright sound that flows and falls as easily as she does when she angles her legs, tries to slip over to the side he's standing on. He steadies her easily with his arm, flannel and cargo-covered, and she asks with a huff, wishes she'd worn more sensible shoes like Dad advised. "I didn't think they --"

"They do," he interrupts, and it's.. oh, Jesus, it's just breathtaking, watching these creatures trek through pastures. He hasn't released his hold on her, though, his callused hand gentle against her bare arm, his thumb brushing over her freckles softly. "Her right side, just under her arm. Makes her purr like a kitten, and it all started when we'd try to get her to sleep appropriately. We figured a few of the nocturnal bits stuck with her, but just stroke her side nice and easy and she'll calm from anything."

He smiles like he sees it, a toss of the sun into his grin as he watches the dinosaur. Taters, he called her, but that wasn't her proper name. Or her species name. The book told her that.

"Rickon," she starts. Her frown wasn't really a frown, not when he took his grey bandanna and wiped the sweat at his brow, spread his grin even more across his face. "That's lovely, but that doesn't tell me the eating habits, social structures, communication --"

"Hey," he cut her off again. "Those are just statistics and numbers and patterns. I told you something about her personality, honey." He grins, but it's more patient than happy, she thinks, until it falls away to nothing and he's roughing his fingers through his auburn hair, sighing quietly. "They're just like people, in case you're missing it. They aren't just their statistics and how many visitors a kind brings in."

When he scoffs, she realizes he isn't fighting her. Just people. "They care more about the mosasaurus, Sammy, drawing in more people than all of Sea World. They don't care that she prefers her fish cooked instead of raw. It's a nice treat for her."

He sulks with his defense, and she doesn't know what to say, not really. "A lot of them don't treat them like they're real, Shireen. Don't you think they'd be happier if we kept them content since they're in captivity?"

"It says they aren't in --" His look keeps her quiet, so she looks out to the dinosaurs instead.

"It's capitalism."

"Not to people like you, though," she murmurs, readjusting her tank top strap since it's sliding. "Some people see it different."

"More should," he frowns. "More should.

 

*

 

Of course he's offered to drive her so she doesn't have to ride on a transport with two dozen people.

It's the fifth day, and he's sunning like he's a cat, his eyes closed with the visor drawn to block out the sun while she soaks in each beautiful creature she sees through the windows.

"What's that one?" she asks him for the eighth time.

He doesn't open his eyes. "Pterodactyl," but that's impossible. "Hey, Shireen? I'm thinking."

"Are you?" she laughs, because whenever is he?

"When do you go back to the States?"

"Two days." She frowns, and she knows it's partially because of him. He's been the best part of this trip, this vacation, and there's a box of lemon cookies on the console, the Righteous Brothers rocking the backtrack to dinosaurs and the smell of all this nature, hickory on his collar and smoke in his hair, and it's all so nice.

She thinks she's been bitten by a mosquito that was extinct before someone gave genetic degrees a value, but her frizzy hair's tied up in his bandana, and it'd be nice to stay here.

"Do you actually live here?"

"My home's in Minnesota. Winterfell, but I sorta wanted to move. Came here instead."

"That's practical," she grins. Rickon Stark is clearly nothing but, obviously, she's gotten to know a bit of him in these few days.

He thinks Pepsi is better than classic Coca Cola, and he may as well be a demon from hell.

"I could call you," he starts, like he isn't sure he even has a phone or something. She looks over at him, and there -- there's the bumbling, adorable idiot she met for the first time. "Sometime. Maybe? If you.. well, I don't know how to use smartphones, but if you'd like to maybe do this again --"

"I couldn't afford it again," she giggles.

He smirks at her. "Maybe without the humidity and the compact boots."

"All the guys look cute, though. 'Specially that one guy."

"Me, I know. I do mean it, Shireen. I'd like to get to know you more, I think."

"You think?" She's almost offended now, and the left side of her face is an itch she can't scratch.

"Well," he amends idly. "I think I'd like to kiss you if you'd let me, but I should get your number first, maybe."

"Maybe?" He's just a crinkly smile at her, so she reaches over and shoves him good-naturedly. "You're a charmer, aren't you?"

"My brother was."

"Ah."

"Yep. I do, um. Go back to college in almost a year, if I could see you then, maybe sometime earlier?"

"Where?" she asks. It's all very diplomatic and promising, and he's blushing again.

"Northwestern."

"That's not too far from where I live!"

"Really?" He perks up so quick, she's guilty for his excitement.

"Not really. Why there?" She wrinkles her nose. She'll never forget their football team defeating her MU.

He elbows her this time, then points at a bird she's missing in a tree a skip away. "Don't you be a snob."

"We could get coffee sometime, then," she blurts. He stares at her, so then she's the bumbling one. "Soon, or not since months, but definitely. Yes?"

"I'll have to think about it," he replies reluctantly, and she'd walk the rest of her way back to her hotel, she swears it.

"You're mean," but he isn't. Not at all. He kisses her just to prove it, and _oh_ , it is nice.

"So." When she's finally breathing again, looking dazed and thoroughly kissed, he thinks, he laughs with her, giddy and magical and renewed. "What do we tomorrow?" she grins.


End file.
